2. EDU Artifact #2.
Choose a Supreme Court case that involves special
education and write about the case and how it has changed the course
of history for students in special education
One Supreme Court case that involves special education is Mills v.
Board of Education of the District of Columbia (348 F. Supp. 866; 1972)
In this case, seven special-needs school-age children were denied by the
District of Columbia School Board to their right to free and public
education. The Board of Education alleged the children were unable to
be educated in public schools due to their exceptional needs, which
included mental illness and mental retardation. The Board further
claimed the cost of providing private educational services was too
expensive; therefore, the children remained at home without access to
an education.
The District of Columbia made clear that deprivation suffered by
the children of that school clearly violated their right to a public school
education. The court added that if there were not enough funds available
to provide all of the needed programming, then the board had to do its
best to apportion the monies in such a way as to ensure that no child
was denied the opportunity to benefit from a public school education. In
sum, the court pointed out that the inadequacies present in the school
system, whether caused by insufficient funding or poor administration,
could not be allowed to impact more heavily on students with
disabilities.